


He's a smart idiot.

by UmbreonGurl



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Caspar-Centric, Gen, Slice of Life, Wholesome, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 06:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20925863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbreonGurl/pseuds/UmbreonGurl
Summary: The first thing people tend to notice about Caspar von Bergliez is that he’s an idiot. The second thing they tend to notice is that for an idiot, he can be surprisingly smart sometimes.





	He's a smart idiot.

Caspar has never been what most people would call smart. He’s never been great at math, and science is hard for him too. He doesn’t have the eloquent speech to be a writer, nor does he have the scholarly interest or the memory to be a historian. (Learning about dead people is so _ boring _ when there are always so many more important things to worry about that are happening _ right now. _)

He knows several people have probably taken one look at his grades and thought him a grade-a dunce. A moron, even. And he’s okay with that. They can think him stupid, they can think him dumb, he doesn’t care. None of these things stop him from trying his hardest to do the best he can, to be the best he can be.

That doesn’t mean it hurts any less, though, when he gets his latest test back littered in red marks and a big fat D on the top. 

“Not again,” he groans. “I really thought I had it in the bag this time.” 

Caspar looks over towards Linhardt for help, only to find he is fast asleep. He sighs. Dorothea, who sits on his other side, glances over towards him.

“Again?” she says. He holds out his paper for her to look at and she glances at his score and grimaces. “Ouch.”

“Yeah,” he replies, “I really thought I did well this time, too.”

“Hand it to me for a second,” she says, giving him “gimme-gimme” hands while looking pointedly at his test. Caspar hands it over. 

She starts to look the test over, before she stops and frowns at one of the problems. She grabs her own test, flips the page, and looks at the same problem. 

“What is it? I didn’t mess up _ that _ bad, did I?” he says, rubbing his hand down his face.

“No, actually.” She hands the paper back towards him. “See here?” 

She points at one of the problems he got marked wrong, one that happened to be worth big points, too.

“Your method here was right,” she says, “You just messed up the computation. You should have at least gotten partial credit for this, Caspar.”

He raises his eyebrows, a surprised grin forming on his face. “Really?”

She nods. “Really. Sounds to me like you need to have a talk with the professor.”

His grin falls and he shivers.

“Jeritza scares me, though, Dorothea. Guy gives me the heebie-jeebies. I don’t get why they even have him teaching math in the first place.”

She shrugs. “It’s your grade.”

He does not end up going to the professor. The day he asks Jeritza for help with anything is the day he dies. And likely, judging by the vibe he gets from that guy, if he tried, those two would be the same day.

* * *

He starts the next day as he starts all of them. He wakes up in the morning with a smile on his face (and tries not to remember that math test), and gets dressed and ready for whatever the day brings. 

He stops briefly to pet some of the cats on the way to the dining hall, and waves at some of his acquaintances as he passes them by.

“Morning, Caspar!” says Suzie, as he runs past her. 

“G’mornin, Suzie! See ya’ around!” he calls back over his shoulder with a wave as he continues on his way. 

This process repeats a few times, with a few more people, until he finally reaches the dining hall. He glances over at the clock as he walks in and sees that he’s five minutes late. Right on time.

He looks over and finds Linhardt using a book as a pillow in his usual spot. And, as usual, right next to him is a plate full of food in front of an empty seat.

Caspar takes his seat, poking Linhardt a few times on his shoulder.

“Wakey, wakey, eggs n’ bakey!” he says, grinning at him as he lifts his head up and rubs his eyes with a yawn.

“You’re late,” mumbles Linhardt. 

“Sorry,” he says, rubbing a hand behind his neck with an embarrassed chuckle. “Forgot to set my alarm again.” 

Both of them know that that excuse is bullshit, as he arrives exactly five minutes late to breakfast every day. (Blame the cats for being so cute.) But neither of them risks breaking the unspoken agreement. Linhardt gets him his food before the line gets long, and in return, he gets some extra nap time and a reliable alarm clock for when it’s time to go to class. (Caspar also ends up acting as his lookout in class, but that’s not part of the breakfast deal, in his opinion.)

“Your shirt’s inside-out again,” mumbles Linhardt, not lifting his head from the table.

Caspar groans around a mouthful of eggs. 

“It is? Shit, not again!” 

Caspar looks down, only to find that Linhardt was right—his shirt _ is _on inside out. (For the second day in a row, too.)

“I really thought I had it on the right way this morning!” he says, looking down at his somehow neatly buttoned jacket. “You don’t think anyone’ll notice, do ya? My jacket hides most of it okay…I think.”

“Did they notice it yesterday?” 

“You noticed.” Caspar takes a moment to think. “Both times, actually. You haven’t even looked up and you _ knew _ I had it on inside-out. It’s like you have a sixth sense for my shirt being on wrong.” 

“I did look up,” Linhardt replies. “I simply remembered what I saw. _ Some _of us have better attention spans than squirrels, you know.”

“Excuse me,” He gasps, mocking offense and grinning when Linhardt cracks one eye open a little. “I think I have at _ least _ the attention span of a cat.”

“Shut up and eat your food. You’ll choke if you keep talking at the rate you shovel food into your mouth. It’s unhealthy.”

“Oh, and how would you know how fast I eat?” he replies, pointing his fork towards Linhardt, who has once again closed his eyes. “You don’t even have your eyes open, dude. You can’t see the speed of my eating.”

“I don’t need to. I know you well enough to know your habits.”

He shrugs. “Fair enough. Just one more thing, and then I’ll leave you alone til’ it’s time to leave. You’re still gonna help me with my essay after class later, right?”

“Yes,” says Linhardt, sighing. “Now can you _ please _ leave me be?”

“Yep. Thanks again for the grub, Lin.”

He gets no response. 

* * *

For some reason, Caspar always seems to end up in fights where he is _ way _ outgunned. For as much as he likes to brag about his strength, (because he is _ very _ strong, thank you very much) he can’t stand by and let people do things that he knows in his heart are _ wrong. _

Some people might say that stepping in when he sees Darius cornered by some other guys is stupid, and well, they’re not wrong. It is a stupid thing to do. 

There are three of them, one of him, and he knows that Darius isn’t the type of guy to be in any sort of brawling shape. (Mages are so_ frail _ sometimes.) Caspar knows it’s a stupid thing to do, but it’s also the _ right _ thing to do. 

One could argue that, hey, maybe you could go tell a faculty member, but by the time he’d be able to find a professor and they’d get there to break things up, Darius would likely be beaten to a pulp. 

“Hey!” he yells, as he walks over towards where Darius is cornered. “Leave him alone.”

“Caspar, don’t!” says Darius, who is waving frantically at him to run as the boys turn towards him instead.

“Oh? And what if we don’t? What are you gonna do about it, pipsqueak?” 

Caspar takes a moment to stretch his shoulders, crack his knuckles, and roll his neck around. 

“Oh, that’s easy. This.”

He runs forward, pulls his fist back, and punches the bastard right in his big, stupid, ugly face. He hears a satisfying crunch as his fist connects right with his nose.

He lets go of Darius, and the two others seem to be too shocked that Caspar had just punched their leader to actually do anything about it yet.

“Darius, go find a professor!” he yells. “I’ve got these guys covered!”

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Darius nods at him and runs off, before his vision is obscured by the sight of a very angry, very bloody, broken-nosed bully. He hears the sound of footsteps as the other two end up on his right and left. Caspar is surrounded. 

“You’re gonna regret that,” says the bully. 

“Yeah,” echo his friends.

“The only ones who are gonna regret anything here are you clowns.”

* * *

Later, Caspar ends up in the infirmary with a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder, and is covered head to toe in bruises. But he can confidently say that he doesn’t regret a thing. And he’d do it again, no question about it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello I love Caspar von Bergliez fire emblem please and thank you for coming to my ted talk.


End file.
